6 Insane Things I’ve Already Learned this Holiday Season

Will the madness never cease? As I watched with (dis)interest the mass controversy surrounding “the cup” (Starbucks, that is), and the “colour rush” controversy and the “sweater controversy” and…now while the media have elevated the shape of a candy cluster to newsworthy status, I learned these six things that are evidently extremely important—six things we all need to do this holiday season.

We all need to be offended by Hershey Corporation. Let’s face it, their failed attempt at creating Christmas-tree-shaped peanut butter cups has to be a secret ploy to undermine the holiday. Either that, or using machinery to mass-shape liquid chocolate and sticky innards is just not consistent. Either way, we should spend countless hours taking photos and creating social media posts about it because it’s completely unacceptable that Hershey doesn’t have better mould control. http://www.delish.com/food/a44966/twitter-users-are-mad-at-reeses-christmas-trees-because-they-dont-look-like-trees/

Instead of praising Dunkin Donuts, we should be offended by their holiday cup. Sure DD found it in their hearts to include winter foliage and the word JOY, but for crying out loud, don’t they understand Christmas isn’t about Joy, it’s about Jesus?

We all need to be mad at Target. Their Obsessive Christmas Disorder sweater is extremely insensitive. After all, the letters O, C, and D cannot be used for any other purpose than abbreviating Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Before this controversy brought me to the light, I was under the impression there was more than one use for the letters OCD. Evidently, I was wrong. OCD can never stand for Operator Controlled Discharge (over 6000 search results); Office of Career Development (over a million search results); or the Office of Civil Defense (this OCD was established by President FDR. [That’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt, not the Friends of the Detroit River—just so we’re clear. Evidently the esteemed Commander-in-Chief was as insensitive as the Target purchasing team.])

We need to realize that the Starbucks marketing team is genius! I imagine the conversation went something like this: I know exactly how to get tons of publicity. We’ll make the cups red instead of green. We’ll “forget” to decorate it with snowflakes, and then we’ll tell everyone it’s a red cup…I mean, Christmas cup. Wait, I mean holiday cup. To make things even more controversial, we’ll serve coffee in it.

We need to be doubly offended when the same transgression is perpetrated by several industries. Starbucks is as insensitive to people who are colorblind as the NFLs Color Rush campaign. After all, Starbucks has only all-red or all-green cups. Also, Dunkin Donuts is as insensitive to colorblind people as the NFL and Starbucks. The holly/snowflake/joy design uses only red and green ink. Someone seriously needs to rethink Christmas colours. http://abcnews.go.com/US/nfl-color-rush-game-fumble-color-blind-fans/story?id=35179304

PayPal should be boycotted for insinuating its service is an easy way for parents to buy their children Christmas presents online. After all, if parents spend extra time with their kids this season instead of leaving the tykes to go shopping, that absolutely, without doubt, and unequivocally, means there is no Santa Clause. (In the novel-writing business, we call that a leap in logic.) A bonus lesson I received: People are offended that PayPal’s video insinuates there’s no Father Christmas, but they are evidently not offended that the video insinuates Christmas is about buying presents. Don’t people understand Christmas isn’t about buying presents, it’s about Jesus?

But seriously, people, we all need to learn how not to be offended. Yes, we need to be kind, considerate and accepting of our fellow man (not just during the holidays, but always), and we need to stand for right when there is legitimate wrongdoing; but, we also need to be logical, level-headed and not so quick to anger. Take a breath. Realize what’s really important—the breakdown of the family, coordinated terror attacks, homelessness and hopelessness. If you must be offended by something, be offended by child pornography, human trafficking, religious persecution and bigotry. If we don’t put as much thinking and sharing and import into these things as we do into whether there are snowflakes on a to-go cup or whether a piece of (yummy) chocolate is accurately shaped like an evergreen, then that’s a sad statement for the future of humanity. I know that’s not a very politically correct thing for me to say, but sorry, mac. To me, PC has always meant Personal Computer.

13 Comments

I’m with Marian…”People take the most inane things seriously and the most serious things casually.” ‘Sides, I don’t go to Starbucks because of their outrageous prices, so who cares what their stupid cups look like. Further, if I were a chocolate person, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t care what shape it came in. Good Lord, humanity!

*GASP* I’m giving away misshapen Chocolate Peanut Butter trees at my book signing Saturday. Oh the controversy that will stir. No one will buy my book because I offended them. Oh the tragedy of it all.
Can we somehow post this article to the world?

Well said, Nicola. I didn’t know about some of these “controversies,” but it’s been my belief from the beginning that Starbucks coordinated the cup controversy. It was excellent publicity, if irritating for its nonsense.